Comments on: The Croft Institute

By: Excuses Excuses! | Cosmic Variance

Excuses Excuses! | Cosmic Variance — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:16:25 +0000

[...] I had a tremendous time in Melbourne (as described here, and here), but am also very glad to be back home. Nevertheless, there were piles upon piles of research, teaching, and administrative/service tasks waiting for me upon my return, and these have entirely consumed the last week. [...]

By: Cosmic Variance

Cosmic Variance — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 02:11:15 +0000

Excuses Excuses!

OK, I know I’ve been slacking on the blogging front recently, and thought I’d explain myself by way getting back into the swing of writing.
As you know if you’ve been reading Cosmic Variance, I recently spent three weeks in Australi…

By: Michael D

Michael D — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 12:58:47 +0000

oops!

I have been staring at the posters in the lifts of the Uni Melb physics building the past week wondering why the name Mark Trodden seemed so familiarâ€¦.

Unfortunately, I have been too preoccupied with final assignments, exam preparation and visiting potential honours supervisors that I didnâ€™t go to any of Markâ€™s seminars!

I hope you enjoyed your stay in Melbourne and hope the Astro team were a welcoming bunch!

By: Tad

Tad — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 18:04:28 +0000

Thanks, guys. If “Miracle of Science” is the one right on a sharp corner, so that its shape is like a narrow triangle, then that was it. See? Must have been great beer.

By: Blake Stacey

Blake Stacey — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:59:36 +0000

The burgers at the Miracle of Science are pretty darn good. Them and a beer were a great way to recover from Prof, Kardar’s problem sets in grad stat mech. (Bukowski’s, over on the Boston side, served the same purpose very well, too.)

By: John Baez

John Baez — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:44:54 +0000

Hey! I liked the Miracle of Science when I was hanging out at MIT - not as a grad student, I think, but later. I don’t think it existed when I was a grad student there; at the time my favorite hangout was the truly ugly but practical Thirsty Ear pub in the basement of my dorm, now slated for destruction. That’s where I first learned to love Bass ale, under the tutelage of my Irish mathematician friend Eugene Gath.

And, I’ve greatly enjoyed some dinners at the Saturn Cafe in Santa Cruz when visiting my jazz-violin-playing former-geologist college pal Laurie Tanenbaum there. Not particularly science-themed as I recall, and not a bar, but okay: planets and vegetarian food, a true Northern California experience.

Let’s see… there’s the Black Hole Bistro at the Perimeter Institute - a very nice sophisticated place, but it’s hard to let your hair down when the bar is actually in the institute where you’re working. The old bar at the old Perimeter Institute building, which used to be a hotel - that was somehow more cozy. Maybe it was the pool table and the out-of-tune piano.

The Eagle in Cambridge is very beautiful, quaint and cozy, though a bit touristy - and this is where the discovery of DNA was first announced, I believe. Not science-themed, though: most of the pictures concern RAF pilots, as does the old graffiti on the ceiling.

Bars and cafes are great places for doing mathematical physics, but they don’t need to be science-themed: probably best if they’re not.

By: Amara

Amara — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 15:35:19 +0000

The Saturn Cafe in Santa Cruz is not a bar but a hippie vegetarian restaurant with a planet theme. Does that count? Its claim-to-fame, besides excellent food, were t-shirts you could buy. Eventually more-than-a-few planetary ring scientists in my old working group at NASA-Ames owned those shirts, which became a kind of status symbol in the Ames Space Sciences building in the 80s and 90s.

By: Jennifer Ouellette

Jennifer Ouellette — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:49:47 +0000

The Science Club in Washington, DC, has old school desks and other scavenged bits to elicit that same sort of atmosphere — except it also feels the need to try and be ultra “hip”. Which rather reduces the original charm of bringing in the old schoolroom and lab stuff… Still, worth checking out.

By: Scott H.

Scott H. — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:24:38 +0000

Tad, you sure that wasn’t the Miracle of Science? Kind of matches your description; one of my colleagues likes to have her students’ thesis committee meetings there. Needless to say, those are committees I enjoy serving on!

Mark, thanks for this posting. I’ve been taking notes on all your Melbourne postings as a guide for things to do during the Texas Symposium this December.

By: Tad

Tad — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:06:32 +0000

I had a 2-day blitz through Boston last year, and remember stopping by (I think) Einstein’s (just north of MIT). Interesting place and decor. Lots of good beer on tap.

By: Ambitwistor

Ambitwistor — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:05:49 +0000

Not a science-themed bar, but Toronto does have the Ein Stein Cafe and Pub. Somewhere I ran across a place called the H Bar, which may also have been in Toronto, but I can’t find any mention of it now…